From Niall Munnelly Sent Mon, Jun 18th 2018, 02:27
You can always take your 808 to a tech and have the power supply recapped. I= guarantee it will return sounding way different from the unit you dropped o= ff. You can also starve the voltage a little, like when a compressor or AC kicks= in, and hear differences in both tempo, volume and pitch whilst listening t= o playback. The 808=E2=80=99s a marvel, for sure, but a lot of that mojo=E2=80= =99s a product of cost-cutting. Sent from a mobile device. Typos and probably bad ideas. > On Jun 17, 2018, at 10:08 PM, Brian Willoughby <xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx> w= rote: >=20 > I don=E2=80=99t think it=E2=80=99s realistic to request a distinction betw= een units that =E2=80=9Ctruly=E2=80=9D sound different versus those that mer= ely need service. I can=E2=80=99t help but think of the =E2=80=9CNo true Sco= tsman=E2=80=9D fallacy. * >=20 > For one thing, your request assumes that adjusting the trimpots actually m= akes two units sound alike. The thing about analog circuits is that componen= ts have 5% and 10% tolerances, trimpots have imperfections that make them di= fficult to adjust precisely, and there are simply a lot of variables. >=20 > However, I would be very interested to hear some recordings that actually d= emonstrate an audible difference in noise transistors, even though that woul= d require very precise trimpot adjustment before it could even be tested. I=E2= =80=99d go so far as to say that it would be very educational to purposely r= eplace a =E2=80=9Cmagic=E2=80=9D Roland noise transistor with a =E2=80=9Cpoo= r=E2=80=9D noise transistor, then adjust the trimpot to service manual speci= fications and see whether anyone could actually hear a difference. >=20 > I say this as someone who got really interested in the different kinds of r= andom number distributions, and assumed they were audible. After writing an a= udio plugin that can create every kind of noise (uniform, triangular probabi= lity distribution, Gaussian, etc), I discovered that they all sound like noi= se. Frequency spectrum manipulations are audible, but the distribution of th= e random values does not seem to be audible. I would be very surprised if tr= ansistor noise varied enough to be audible. >=20 > On the latter note, Occam=E2=80=99s Razor says that Roland=E2=80=99s =E2=80= =9Cspecial=E2=80=9D transistors were just cheap ones that were good for noth= ing else. I doubt that they=E2=80=99re better at making snare and clap sound= s, they=E2=80=99re probably just shite for anything else. >=20 > Brian >=20 > * Don=E2=80=99t look up =E2=80=9CTrue Scotsman,=E2=80=9D look up =E2=80=9C= No true Scotsman.=E2=80=9D They=E2=80=99re quite different expressions. >=20 >=20 >> On Jun 15, 2018, at 11:14 AM, matt holland <xxxx@xxxxxxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: >> To amend my previous request, I'm interested in hearing units that truly s= ound different (not that just need to have their trimpots adjusted or aging c= apacitors replaced). My suspicion all along when I've heard these claims is t= hat they fall in to that category, but maybe there are units that (for examp= le) have such different noise transistors that their snares can't be trimmed= to spec (or to sound alike). That would be a solid example. >>=20 >> Also, just to remind everyone. Tom is looking for a minty 808 ;) >>=20 >> mh >=20